The impact of social adversity on cardiovascular health and aging

Wednesday, March 26, 2025, 3:30 – 5:00 pm PST
In person – UBC Okanagan RHS 257
and via Zoom
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The impact of social adversity on cardiovascular health and aging: what can we learn from our evolutionary cousins?

As humans age, the risk of cardiovascular (CV) disease increases. With a growing, and aging, population such as that in British Columbia, the health and economic burden of CV disease is increasing. Although many of the causes of CV disease are well-established, it has been hypothesized that social adversity (e.g. emotional stress, loneliness, financial insecurity and childhood hardship) may accelerate the onset and progression of CV disease. In humans, exploring the independent effect of social adversity on CV health is challenging, since we are long-lived and often exposed to many other confounders (e.g. poor diet, pollution, physical inactivity and smoking). In contrast, free-living monkeys with a shorter lifespan, but similar biology to humans, present an excellent model as they live in highly structured communities, with fewer confounders, and dependent upon hierarchical status experience a wide range of social adversity. Leveraging a new collaboration with the Caribbean Primate Research Centre we are conducting a longitudinal study combining across multiple disciplines (e.g. social ecology, genomics and immunology), to examine the biological mechanisms that may link social adversity to accelerated CV aging and disease.

Presenters:
Lauren Brent, Professor, Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB), University of Exeter

Erin Siracusa, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Exeter

Rob Shave, Professor, School of Health & Exercise Sciences, FHSD, UBC Okanagan

Tony Dawkins, Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Heart, Lung & Vascular Health, FHSD, UBC Okanagan,

A collaboration with Office of the Vice-President, Health, UBC Health; and the University of Exeter